


feeling less than valiant

by mathonwys



Category: Henry Stickmin Series (Video Games)
Genre: (...in chapter 2.), Alternate Universe - Charles Lives, Angst with a Happy Ending, Charles has a crush on Henry, Depression, Gen, Henry Stickmin Knows about Alternate Timelines, Neurodivergent Charles Calvin, Selectively Mute Henry Stickmin, Temporary Character Death, Valiant Hero Ending | VH (Henry Stickmin), contains artwork, vague descriptions of injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-07
Updated: 2020-10-08
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:06:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26884105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mathonwys/pseuds/mathonwys
Summary: There has to be some other option,the little spark of hope that somehow hadn’t gotten snuffed out yet said.It can’t end like this.Henry's been repeating Charles's death again and again, trying to find a way to save him. He's close to giving up hope... but the fun part of alternate timelines is figuring out what does and doesn't stay consistent between them.(aka Henry learns that sometimes youdoneed to move forward, even just a little bit.)
Relationships: Henry Stickmin & Charles Calvin
Comments: 7
Kudos: 125





	1. Henry

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first fic for this fandom and i am SO nervous. i know VH fics are a pretty common topic but also i just want charles to be okay ): HE'S GONNA BE OKAY. I PROMISE.
> 
> ive got a few AU ideas sitting around but this is the one i ended up writing first-- i drew a sketchy comic late at night and posted it on my tumblr a bit ago, and then got possessed by the urge to write the whole thing out. it... got out of hand. and by "get out of hand" i mean there originally wasn't supposed to be a Henry POV chapter at all. this seems to be a recurring problem for me
> 
> sorry for how rough chapter 1 is, guys. i dont know how this happened

-

He could recite it line-by-line at this point. Charles’s final words, the general’s reaction to the news, the murmured condolences— he’d heard it over and over as he desperately wound back time to try again.

Wasn’t sure how many times he’d done it, to be honest. He tried _everything_ , every trick in the book, every angle of attack, only for it to fail in some spectacular way and kick him back to the start. Most of those ended in him dying, of course, but that was about average for him since he’d tried breaking the bank. _Charles_ dying, on the other hand, was something unfamiliar and terrifying that he struggled with.

There had been a memorable loop where, when he’d gotten pulled out of the escape pod, he’d been the one to shove Charles in and fight the Toppat off. He’d mouthed an apology to Charles through the glass as he hit the button to send him home. Charles’s voice had been in his earpiece then, frantic rambling that was so out of character for the laidback pilot that had always managed to stay casual in the face of even the most dangerous of dangers, and Henry hadn’t been able to find words to say in return up until the end.

The explosion had dramatic timing, as usual. Henry’s last words had gotten cut off.

...and then he was in the bar again, listening to the same news report, and if anyone saw or heard him slam his face into the bar to muffle his yell of desperate frustration they didn’t comment on it.

He needed to move on, he knew he did. Rewinding wasn’t _working_ , there was no “better outcome” here, and he’d relived those moments so many times that he was becoming numb to it. The thought made Henry sick. Over the course of many resets he’d gone from banging on the cracked glass of the pod and screaming himself hoarse to slumping against it and sobbing hard to, on this latest loop, just sitting down on the floor and staring blankly as it sank in that he’d failed _yet again_.

This time, when he found himself in front of the grave, Henry sat down like he had in the pod and stayed there for a while. The urge to try again burned in the back of his mind, but he couldn’t find the drive in him anymore. What was the point? All he was going to accomplish was either getting himself killed (and therefore having to do it all over) or seeing Charles die again. He was _tired_.

 _There has to be some other option_ , the little spark of hope that somehow hadn’t gotten snuffed out yet said. _It can’t end like this._

It did.

Henry had always been bad at keeping track of time and dates— living your life in a loop tends to do that to you— but even though he was now trudging down a linear path for the first time in years everything still managed to blend together into a grey fog. Honestly it was a miracle that General Galeforce hadn’t discharged him. The general’s lenience when it came to his odd behaviours had been something he joked about with Charles before— _how much do you think I can get away with?_ — and now it was both welcome and hated. He appreciated the time to breathe, but at the same time wished that Galeforce held him to some kind of standard instead of treating him like a teenage son going through a particularly awful breakup rather than a superpowered covert ops agent refusing to even leave his dorm.

 _Take your time_ , Galeforce had said, and Henry hadn’t said anything.

At some point his hair had grown out, messy and tangled, and Henry stared at the unfamiliar reflection in the mirror. He’d always kept his hair short and scruffy, but now it was down to his shoulders. His black roots were now fully visible— no, more than just that, it looked more like he’d just bleached the tips, it had gotten that long. He was worryingly pale, with dark circles under his eyes; he looked like he hadn’t slept or showered in _weeks_ , and Henry didn’t want to think about if that was true or not. His clothing was rumpled from him not bothering to change out of them when going to sleep, and around his neck was a red-and-black headset that his fingers kept ghosting across. A spare. The same set from the gravestone. Something to remember him by.

Henry was lost in the act of staring himself down in the mirror and nearly missed the knock at his door. Whoever it was was persistent, however, and the sound broke through the blank void surrounding him. He weighed his options. If time slowed down or froze, he couldn’t tell; he hadn’t had to make an important choice since he decided to stop rewinding to that day outside the Wall, and it left him feeling directionless. Was this an opportunity he could afford to miss? What if he ended up going down the wrong path and couldn’t turn back until it was too late?

The person repeatedly knocking looked about as surprised at Henry answering the door as Henry did. He searched his memory to put a name to a face— June July, maybe? She was born in August— and tried to ignore her expression that clearly said _damn, you live like this?_

:Uh,” June stammered. Henry waited. He found himself wondering just what she had heard about him for her to lose her nerve like this. He was practically a ghost on the base; he’d trailed behind Charles like a shadow, at first, distrusting of everyone, and then started loosening up and… well, not so much making friends as making enemies. That was about the same thing for him. Not anything super serious, of course, but if people found themselves missing key items it was easy to pin the blame on the local thief who had made a fun game out of seeing what he could swipe before anyone noticed. Then, after the destruction of the Toppat space station, Henry had just… disappeared. Still on base, but skulked around in the shadows and avoided people as much as possible. “The— the general wants to see you. It’s important.”

Henry held his hands up, preparing to sign some questions that he doubted he’d get answers to (the amount of people here that knew sign language was higher than expected, but still lower than he liked), then lowered them and settled for a nod. June still looked on edge. An awkward silence stretched out between them, then was broken by June snapping to attention. “Oh! Oh, you probably need an… an escort. OK! OK. Follow me.” Before Henry could reply, June was already off at a brisk pace that he had to jog to keep up with.

Truth be told, he didn’t need an escort. He had the base layout memorized by now, from the days between the cold winter and the depths of space where he’d been unofficially enlisted. Charles had wanted to rush straight to the space station after reuniting with Henry, but his plan had been vetoed by Galeforce as soon as the two of them set foot in the hangar. After that, the two of them had ran smaller missions chasing Toppats around the globe and gathering intel up until Charles had pulled Henry aside and told him _I’m sick of this. We need to stop them once and for all, and I have the perfect plan. Are you with me?_

Henry had said yes, of course. He’d helped Charles break in and steal the prototype spacecraft, and then they were off, Charles’s eyes alight with enthusiasm as they left the planet behind and exited the atmosphere. Henry himself spent the trip staring up at the myriad of stars surrounding them, completely enchanted by the sight.

You know how it goes by now.

June parted ways with him and Henry found himself standing in front of the door to Galeforce’s office. Was he supposed to knock? Probably. Henry held out a fist, but hovered uneasily. Why did Galeforce need to see him? June’s phrasing of _it’s important_ meant that it was likely more than just a check-in. Maybe his complete inaction had finally led to the day where he was being sent home. Not that he really _had_ a home, anymore. Henry had no idea what’d happened to his apartment after he’d been locked up at the Wall, and even then it’d just been somewhere for him to use as a safehouse while he got himself into deeper and deeper trouble. If he did get kicked out from the military, he had nowhere to go. Sure, he’d find somewhere, somehow, but…

“Come in, Stickmin,” the general’s voice rang from the other side of the door. Henry blanched, aware of his own hesitation, then entered.

General Galeforce’s expression was carefully neutral. Henry stood in the doorway, ramrod straight, as the older man leafed through a file before setting it aside, interlacing his fingers, and meeting Henry’s eyes. Henry fought the urge to look away and instead tried to radiate any vibe that wasn’t “dead inside”. Galeforce was searching him, he could tell, although for what he wasn’t sure. Anxiety spiked in his chest; Henry’s eyes flitted to the file, then back to Galeforce as he pretended he didn’t break eye contact. Galeforce pressed his lips together in a thin line, then closed his eyes, sighed, and got to his feet.

Henry stayed where he was as the general walked around his desk and approached. Every instinct was yelling _run_ , but he kept his feet planted even as Galeforce stood in front of him, arms crossed behind his back and looming over him. _Hold it together, Stickmin,_ he chided himself. Hold steady.

Galeforce was having trouble finding words. The realization made Henry’s heart sink. He could see the false barely-starts, the general clearly wanting to say something but stopping himself before he could; whatever the topic was, it was a hard one, and that just made the urge to run even stronger.

“A piece of the destroyed Toppat station landed off the coast,” Galeforce said.

Henry stared up at him, uncomprehending.

“A team was sent to investigate, and I received the report today.” He turned and walked back to the desk. Henry watched the movement, still struggling to understand the words being said to him. Galeforce’s hands trembled just the slightest amount as he picked the file back up, his back to the thief. “There were some dead Toppat Clan members, and… one of our own.”

_No._

It felt like Henry was slowly sliding out of his own body. Everything grew distant, his senses dulled and his train of thought empty; he grappled with this new information with clumsy hands, his grip weak and half-hearted. Galeforce still had his back to him. He didn’t see Henry steady himself against the wall, didn’t see Henry grip his wrist tightly as he tried to ground himself against the chorus of _no no no no no_ welling up inside him. He knew what Galeforce was going to say next. He knew, just as well as he still had the way Galeforce asked _what’s wrong?_ after he was brought into the tent to report burned into his memory.

“They found Charlie’s body,” General Galeforce said, and it was like the ground had opened up underneath him to drag him down into the core.

Galeforce held out the file. Henry recoiled like it was a live scorpion. _No_. No, it couldn’t end like this. There was always some last-second save, a cheeky quip before he got yanked back in time and got to try again. Henry Stickmin always made it out on top, always found a way to steal victory from defeat, always found a way to get the best ending out of hundreds of failures. Any second now this would turn out to be some kind of horrible flash-forward, a moment of _here are the consequences of your actions_ , and then he’d wake up and Charles would be there and he’d have a brand new option to pick and they’d both get out of there alive.

Henry opened the manila folder, eyes unfocused as he stared down at the printed text. Photos stared back at him alongside the words— there was the Toppat that grabbed him, there was the remnants of the escape pod bay, there was… 

His throat tightened. An iconic red headset, heavily damaged, was in one of the photos. If not for the state it was in, it would be identical to the headphones around his neck right now. Henry set the file down on Galeforce’s desk and braced himself against it with one arm while his other hand reached up to grab at the headset he was wearing in an attempt to ground himself.

He could still run, he thought. He didn’t have to keep looking at this. He could run out the door, and pretend that there wasn’t any more evidence, that it was just that photo of a broken headset among the rubble, that Charles was still alive and was just in hiding and recovering and had lost his headphones in the explosion and he could go find him and it would be okay. He didn’t have to confirm it. He didn’t have to.

The next photo was visible as soon as he turned the page and Henry choked on a sob. Oh god, no. _Charles._

It was, unmistakably, him. Long blonde hair, dyed red at the tips; scattered freckles over his cheeks and the bridge of his nose; patches sown onto his jacket next to various buttons and badges; flight suit half-off, with the sleeves tied around his waist. Without a shadow of a doubt, that was Charles Calvin.

Henry couldn’t look away. Charles’s hair hid the right side of his face, but he could tell it was matted with blood; one of his legs was bent at an odd angle, and while his jacket had mostly survived after being half-pulled off during the scuffle with the Toppat, one of his arms hadn’t. The best way Henry could describe Charles’s state was _broken_.

His head hit the desk a moment before his arms did. Henry grabbed at his hair, tangling his fingers into it, and willed himself to cry, to scream, to do _anything_ besides make the pathetic keening noise that was leaking out of him. _Charles was gone._ He knew this, he’d known this for a while now, but that last burning ember of hope had still managed to cling onto life through all of that.

He could still rewind. He could still reset the clock, see him again, and then… what? Watch him die again? Know he was putting Charles through a thousand deaths while he tried and failed to find the one path where both of them made it out safe and sound? How many more times could he put the both of them through this? Was he willing to spend an eternity chasing an ending that might not even exist?

If Galeforce was saying anything, Henry didn’t hear it. _It’s over_ , he thought, bitter. _This is my “happy ending”._

He didn’t want to move forward anymore.

Henry pushed himself up so he was resting on his elbows and realized everything had gone dead silent around him. Galeforce had moved closer, one hand out to clap it on his shoulder, but had frozen like a statue. The clock on the wall wasn’t ticking. For the first time since that fatal choice, Henry found himself the only person still moving even though time had stopped.

He had the option to make a choice, then. _Retry_ came to mind, as it always did— out of the numerous possibilities surrounding him, that was always one of them. Rewind, try again, find a different path. How far back could he go? Henry’s failures booted him back anywhere from meeting Charles again to stealing the prototype to whatever his last “incorrect” choice was, but… could he go back further? Maybe he could find a different way out of the Wall, find a way to contact Charles, find a way to stop the Toppats before they launched the station in the first place.

...but what if it all led back down to the same road? What if this was a mandatory life event, like him getting arrested after breaking the bank or getting locked up in the Wall or getting kidnapped by the government to infiltrate the airship in the first place? What if he couldn’t fight this? What if— 

No. Scenarios flickered through his mind, too fast to catch. Near-infinite possibilities— failure after failure, but success after success. Special covert ops agent alongside Charles, riding off into the sunset; king of the Toppats alongside a red haired girl he vaguely remembered from the Wall; going solo, following his own whims of nonsensical thievery; fueled entirely by revenge, tearing down the Toppats with his own two hands; everything chaining together from the first decision he’d ever made, standing outside the walls of that desert vault, spiraling out into a web of branching paths that had him at every angle of the conflict.

So… what? Leave this dead-end timeline behind, try for better? Henry balked at the thought. No, that felt… _wrong_. Disrespectful. He’d just be replacing _this_ Charles with another, one that had no idea what he’d gone through, one that he might not even end up having the same bond with despite sharing a name and face. He’d be giving up on him, after he’d risked literally everything to save his life.

He couldn’t think of a way out of this one. As far as he could tell, two options were in front of him: keep moving forward, or start walking backwards.

Something was bothering him. _That’s not the choice_ , something in him said, and Henry swatted at it in frustration. Then what _was_? What was he supposed to do? Charles was dead, broken beyond repair, and he— 

—woke up in a hospital bed, coughing at the phantom feeling of water in his lungs. Someone was instantly at his bedside— blonde, ponytail, lab coat, an older woman with an accent— and as she spoke Henry lifted up a hand to see gleaming metal. _Had to replace most of spine and left arm_ , she said, and Henry struggled with that because he was pretty sure he’d been dead until now— 

_Broken beyond repair_ , he thought as he jolted back to the here-and-now of this timeline. Broken beyond repair like he’d been, in another time and place far from here. But he _had_ been repaired, been brought back to life just like Reginald’s Right Hand had in timelines besides this one. _There’s still a chance._

Henry Stickmin had choices laid out in front of him. He could retry and change his path entirely. He could keep moving forward, grieve, and eventually move on.

Or he could try and hunt down someone he wasn’t entirely sure even _existed_ outside of flashes of memories from another timeline.

The clock on the wall started ticking again. Galeforce rested his hand on Henry’s shoulder. Henry took in a deep, shuddering breath. The tears were flowing now, dripping down onto the paperwork and photos; Galeforce carefully extracted the file from where Henry was bent over it and closed the folder before it could get damaged. Henry wasn’t sure how to describe the emotion he was feeling right now. Hope, maybe. Fear intermingled with hope. He had an end goal again— a mission to complete— and he found himself hoping that he’d be able to cross that finish line without having to relive all of this over and over again.

“ _Charles_ ,” he whispered in a voice hoarse and scratchy from disuse. He didn’t say the next part out loud: _I’m going to fix this._


	2. Charles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “...plan?”
> 
> Charles’s ears were ringing. Charles was also, somehow, very alive.
> 
> -
> 
> Charles wakes up.

“Pretty good plan,” Charles said. He hoped Henry couldn’t hear him suck air in through his teeth as the station’s shaking jostled him and caused the throbbing pain in his leg and side to spike. His headphones, badly broken but still functional enough to connect to Henry’s earpiece, were somewhat askew; the Toppat he’d gotten in a fistfight with had nearly pulled them off, but Charles had knocked him out solid before that could happen. He was pretty thankful for that— he wasn’t sure what he’d do without them.

He knew there was an escape pod nearby. He didn’t know what state it was in, and it was blockaded by rubble from his daredevil crash into the station; between that and how messed up he’d gotten in the crash and the fight, Charles had decided to not chance it. Instead, he'd chosen to slump against the wall and talk to Henry, even as the signal connecting them got weaker from distance. He knew he didn’t have much time left. The wailing klaxons were getting louder as the countdown drew closer to zero, but he still kept his voice steady as he spoke.

Charles was a pilot. If a pilot starts panicking, then their passengers start panicking. He needed to be calm, to be casual, to take everything in stride. He needed to manage his panic and not let it get the best of him. If Henry heard him panic, then Henry would freak out, and he needed Henry to not freak out or try to do anything stupid right now. He needed Henry to be safe. He could keep up the act a little bit longer— _there’s gotta be another escape pod somewhere_ , he said, tilting his head to look at the one he’d written off.

He was scared. All the adrenaline had faded, and he was in an inescapable situation with his death on a timer. Charles knew that all of the choices he’d made led up to this moment, and that by sitting down and talking to Henry he was wasting time he could be using to escape.

But… Henry’s safety was more important. That’s why Charles had shoved him back into the pod and hit the button before Henry could do anything to stop him. Henry was something amazing, someone truly legendary, and if only one of the two of them was going to make it out of here he knew it had to be Henry. Sure, it would be nice to be heading back down to Earth with him, but… sometimes things just don’t work out like that. 

Charles knew he was going to die someday, and at least here he was going to die actually accomplishing something. At least here he was spending his last few moments with a friend he’d be willing to die for over and over. He was going to go out in a supernova, taking the entire Toppat orbital base with him, and he was going to be a hero.

He just hoped Henry would forgive him for it.

“You could say,” Charles said, tears streaming down his cheeks as he forced a smile, “it was the greatest—“

“...plan?”

Charles’s ears were ringing. Charles was also, somehow, very alive.

His right eye wouldn’t open, but his left eye did. He blinked a couple of times to try and get the bleariness out of it; the room around him came into focus, like it was remembering to exist, and the first thing he saw was none other than Henry Stickmin leaning over him, face close to his own, eyes brimming with tears.

“Henry!” His name tore out of him in a rush. The secret mission, the crash, the escape pod, the explosion— relief flooded through him because _Henry’s here_ and Henry’s okay and that means everything’s okay because as far as Charles is convinced Henry can do anything and everything. Henry had survived, just like Charles knew he would, and his heart soared. He'd made the right choice. “You made it!”

His covert ops partner had definitely seen better days— he barely looked like he’d slept, and his clothes seemed baggier on him than usual, and his hair was unwashed and gross. It was also longer than Charles had ever seen it; Henry had always kept his hair short, but now it was down to his shoulders and he found himself wondering just how long he’d been asleep. Either that, or Henry was wearing a wig, and the thought made him snort a little. No, he was pretty sure that was Henry’s actual hair, which raised the question… “Wait, you’re not naturally blonde?”

“Charles…” Henry whispered, wiping at his tears as he leaned back. Around his neck was a pair of red headphones, and Charles zeroed in on them. _Are those_ **_mine_** _?_ Yep, sure were. Not the headset he was wearing up on the station, because that had been smashed up from his dynamic entry; instead Henry appeared to have found one of his spares, and a very small part of him noted that Henry looked pretty cute wearing them like that.

Charles shook his head a little to try and dispel that thought, and discovered with some concern that it didn’t work. Not in that he didn’t shake off his train of thought, but in that the movement was far less than he was aiming for. “Uh, Hen…“ He saw Henry tense up, and the thief’s hands found their way to rest on the borrowed headset as if he was trying to comfort himself. Charles hesitated at that reaction— maybe it was the use of a nickname?— but pushed on regardless.

“...why can’t I move?” He didn’t sound upset, or even all that concerned, because he basically never did. Charles was completely unfazed by anything and everything, and that included being mostly immobilized. Instead he sounded more _confused_ than anything else, not even the slightest bit panicked, but he saw Henry tense up anyway. He sucked on his teeth and made a slight face. “Can’t, uh, feel my arm either.”

He watched Henry struggle to put together an answer and, despite his best attempts to stay lighthearted, felt a small twinge of anxiety. The thief’s hands were trembling as he held them up to start signing; Charles watched as he made small gestures, not really anything meaning anything. He tried his best to search his own memory and came up with… nothing. The last thing he remembered was being up on the station, and now he’s here in a very comfy bed in… was this a hospital room? He hadn’t actually looked around, what with being so focused on Henry. Oh, this was definitely a hospital setup.

Henry must’ve seen him cringe at the realization, or maybe something else caused him to start signing “sorry” over and over. Sorry for _what_? Charles was the one that had fought off the Toppat and shoved Henry back into the escape pod without any care for his own safety. Henry literally hadn’t done anything wrong. “Hey,” Charles spoke up, “Hey, hey, no—“

The door opened and caught the attention of both of them. Charles glanced over and saw a tall, blonde woman enter the room; she was dressed in a simple, stereotypical doctor’s outfit, with long hair tied back in a ponytail and a pair of pink-tinted glasses resting on her nose. She was also completely unfamiliar. Charles could be a bit of a ditz sometimes, sure, but he’s still pretty sure he’d be able to at least recognize those details. She looked up from the clipboard she was carrying and paused at the scene in front of her.

“Oh, good, he is awake!” she said with a distinct accent. Charles stifled a _snrk_ as a memory popped up. She had that same accent as those creeps at the Wall, and when he’d reunited with Henry at the bar, the ex-convict had expressed surprise at Charles being in Russia of all places. The face he made when Charles had told him they were currently both in Canada had been _excellent_. He tried to not poke too much fun at Henry over it, he really did, but that didn’t stop him from making occasional teasing jabs anyway. Then again, Henry had outright been kidnapped ( _again_ ) and had no idea where he was, so he couldn’t fault him for making assumptions.

Somewhere between where his train of thought had started and ended (good ol’ ADHD derailing him even after a near-death experience), the doctor had hurried to his bedside and leaned over him. It was a bit hard to see with her in the way, but Charles caught glimpses of Henry signing to her— probably filling her in on what had happened since he woke up. Once Henry finished his explanation, she nodded and returned her focus to Charles. “This will only take moment,” she reassured him as she pulled down the blanket that had been covering him; Charles raised his eyebrows a little as he felt her feel around the back of his neck and do… _something_. “Simply need to adjust cybernetics.”

_What_?

Charles jerked away from her in alarm, and then discovered that yep, he sure can move right now, that’s pretty great! He mimicked her, feeling around his neck, until his fingers brushed against lukewarm metal starting near the base of his skull; with growing confusion, Charles sat up and followed it down as far as he could reach behind himself. It was smooth and segmented, like a flexible metal seam running down his spine. He gave Henry a startled look, then turned to look at what the doctor was doing now— specifically, at the limp cybernetic arm she was holding that happened to be attached to his right shoulder.

“Wait, huh?” Charles said, eloquent as usual. “What?” She didn’t pay him any mind, instead messing with something near the shoulder. Charles watched, perplexed, then yelped in startled pain as a jolt ran through him and he wrenched his arm out of her grasp. _His_ arm. What had been dead weight up until now was suddenly registering in his brain as _part of him_ , even if his conscious self was still struggling to accept that. The doctor took hold of his arm again with a look of slight annoyance, and Charles flexed his new fingers as his brain made unhelpful dial-up noises.

“You… got hurt.” Henry’s voice. Charles immediately snapped to attention. Henry rarely spoke unless it was just him and Charles alone, and even then he kept his sentences short most of the time; he hung onto the thief’s every word, feeling honoured that he was one of the very, very few people that Henry felt safe enough around for his anxiety to loosen enough to let him speak. He’d done a little bit of research into selective mutism, around the same time he’d been brushing up on his ASL ( _only in case he did more missions with Henry in the future_ , he’d told himself after the airship infiltration), and Henry himself had explained it a little once he felt confident enough to.

Henry was signing along with his words, his movements slow and awkward. As best as Charles could tell, Henry’s nonverbal communication was a mix of self-taught (and somewhat dodgy) ASL and gestures Charles didn’t recognize that might’ve been made up by Henry himself. Difficult for other people to understand, but after spending time with him Charles had caught on and could read what he was saying clear as day.

“Got hurt,” Henry repeated, hesitant. “Very badly.” Charles watched as Henry tapped at his arm, the side of his face near his eye, his side— all on the right— and then over the shoulder to indicate his back. Charles fidgeted a little, hyper-aware of the heavy metal now grafted to him, and the doctor sharply told him to stop squirming so much in a tone that suggested she had very little patience for it as she pried open a panel on his upper arm to resume tinkering. He instead settled for looking his hand over— shiny segmented grey metal, with a dull red orb in the center of his palm that reflected the fluorescent lights overhead. Glass, maybe? “Got help from Doctor V.”

“Dr. Vinschpinsilstien,” she corrected. Charles blinked. She rolled her eyes, clearly expecting that reaction; behind her, Henry did his best to try and fingerspell her name before giving up after several tries. “...Or Doctor V. Fine.” Dr. V sighed and pushed a free lock of hair behind her ear with a gloved hand. “Had to replace arm, part of spine. Eye, too.”

Charles did his best to stay still despite the weird and unnerving sensations of her fiddling with the inside of his arm; satisfied, she closed the panel and then brushed aside the hair covering the right side of his face. Henry made an odd noise and one of his hands jerked up to cover his mouth. Before Charles could ask what was wrong, Dr. V did another _something_ and Charles was momentarily dizzied as he abruptly switched to seeing out of both eyes again. “Is miracle body found and intact,” she noted as she pulled away. Henry instantly filled the space she vacated by Charles’s side.

A miracle, huh? Charles’s expression softened as he toyed with his hair. His bangs had fallen back into place to hide his artificial eye; despite how long Henry’s hair had gotten, as far as Charles could tell his own hair was about the same length as it had been. “Yeah,” he said, looking directly at Henry with a fond smile. Henry glanced away, but Charles could see that he was smiling too, if somewhat sad. The other’s hands were resting on the headset around his neck, in what Charles was quickly picking up on as being a nervous tic— like he was trying to reassure himself. He wasn’t really sure what had happened between his last memory and waking up here, but he could tell that Henry must’ve gone through a lot to rescue him or whatever he’d done. It didn’t really surprise him. Henry had the uncanny ability to just _do_ things, no matter how impossible or unlikely or bizarre. “Henry does those. Miracles, I mean.”

Dr. V looked like she wanted to say more, but a look from Henry that Charles didn’t quite understand (despite his covert ops partner always having been an open book) cut her off. Instead, she shook her head and grabbed a cable from a rat’s nest of cords near the bed; Charles eyed it with muted unease as she checked the shape of the connector on the end, then reached over and plugged it in somewhere near the base of his neck. He shuddered at the unnerving feeling, but after a moment his vision came into clearer focus and he felt wide awake. Wait, did she just plug him in to a power outlet or something? Can she do that?

“You will need to stay here until charged,” she said, and yep that confirms it. Charles reached out to mess with the power cord and Dr. V swatted his hand away with the expertise of someone that has done this many, many times before. She nodded towards Henry, who gave her a thumbs up, and _that_ was something Charles could understand: Henry agreeing to not let him do anything stupid. Satisfied with his answer, Dr. V headed out the door. “Do not get into trouble, repairs are expensive.”

Charles waited until the door closed and he was sure she was gone before letting out a huge sigh and flopping back down on the bed. The plug was a bit jostled from the motion, but thankfully stayed put. “Can you believe that?” Charles waved his mechanical hand around. The glass orb in his palm had brightened with an internal light to a warmer red matching the dyed tips of his hair (he bet Henry had told Doc V that red was his favourite colour), and Charles paused to look at it before resuming his emphatic wiggling. “I’ve got _batteries_.” He gave Henry a wide grin, his visible eye half-lidded. “Guess I’ll need to be more careful—“

Anything else he was about to say went out the window as Henry reached out and took his hand in his. Charles looked up at him, feeling Henry’s warm hands clasped around his metal one; there was something soft and sad in Henry’s eyes, apologetic yet relieved. Henry had the talent to say a thousand words with a single expression, and Charles got the feeling that there was so, so much Henry wanted to tell him but was holding back on. Tears were forming in Henry’s eyes again, and a small part of Charles wanted to reach up and brush them away. He held himself back from that urge, though— he wasn’t sure how Henry would react, seeing as he wasn’t always the most touchy-feely of people (in contrast to Charles, who once had full-body tackled Henry after a particularly exhilarating mission).

“…missed you too,” Charles said. Henry smiled, a wibbly and fragile thing, and Charles decided to chase his impulses right into the sun. Henry gasped in surprise as Charles yanked him down, but before he could push him away and get back up Charles looped his arms around the taller man and encased him in a tight hug. The thief continued fighting against it for a moment, but then the situation sank in and he practically melted into Charles’s embrace.

It wasn’t a very comfortable hug. Charles’s arm was cold and not at all padded, and Henry’s face was smushed into his shoulder in a way that could _not_ be enjoyable for him, and the angle in general was super awkward with Henry half-off the bed, but neither of them really cared in the moment. There was a warmth in Charles’s chest, and he wasn’t sure if it was from the strong emotions he was feeling or if he had an internal power core or something that was heating up. Maybe both? Hopefully he couldn’t overload from sheer amount of feelings or anything like that.

Honestly, he could just fall asleep right here. Or, well, he wasn’t really sure if he could, because charging meant that he felt pretty awake. But… Henry was here, and Henry was OK, and getting to hug Henry was really nice. Yeah, Charles was perfectly happy here. He was still a bit confused about how Henry was acting, and how he even got here seeing as his last memory was of him being in orbit, but those questions could wait.

Charles buried his face in Henry’s hair. Yeah, everything else could wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And Then Charles Was OK Because Nothing Bad Happens In Valiant Hero
> 
> im sorry if this is kinda wonky-- i had this finished at the same time i posted the first chapter, but i held back on it to do some more revision because it still felt a little bit off. probably just means i need more practice writing charles.
> 
> dont know if ill do any followups to this because the ideas i have are, uh, angst, and there is already so much VH angst out in the world fgxjdkhg BUT I DO WANT TO WRITE MORE STICKMIN FIC IN GENERAL so. expect more of that perhaps
> 
> you can read the comic version of this chapter here!:  
> https://mathonwys.tumblr.com/post/630921955054419968/


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